


After Sam

by Amberdreams



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Comfort/Horror, Gen, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-18
Updated: 2010-10-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 12:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberdreams/pseuds/Amberdreams





	1. Chapter 1

**Story Title** : _After Sam_ _  
_ **Character/Relationships** : _Sam, Dean, Lisa, Ben, Castiel, OCs_  
 **Rating** : PG  
 **Summary:** _Cicero has been quiet and safely boring since the changelings, but now something is stirring in the depths of the reservoir._  
 **Warnings** : _Spoilers for Season 6, some bad language_

 **Word count:** 5266

 **Complete:**   
_Yes_

 _  
_

* * *

**Prologue**

The lake surface was dark, reflecting nothing. The dog snuffled happily and aimlessly at the faint rippled edges of the water, turning dead leaves with its damp black nose. Its enthusiastic rootling around stirred up new and exciting scents that thrilled his doggy senses.

Unfortunately, scents were not all that was stirring.

The creature was old. Ancient even. Had been old when the pyramids were being built in Giza, old when the Chinese were creating culture, old when man was discovering fire. But it had always had a taste for blood. Warm blood.

And it was _always_ hungry.

It smelled flesh. Fresh and appetising.

It rose with a rush to the surface and opened its jaws wide, then wider, with a blast of foul breath that took the dog entirely by surprise. Razor sharp teeth, huge and curved like scimitars, closed with a terrible snap round the startled animal's head, taking it whole and chewing down on the sinews of its neck with an arterial spurt of red. The dog died instantly, without a sound.

 **Chapter 1**

 _Dean was out of quarters. Again. He lay back on the newly-still bed, hands clasped behind his head, elbows akimbo, ankles crossed and sighed loudly in mourning for the absence of magic fingers. He gave his brother a hard stare but Sam was doing a very good job of ignoring him, his huge frame hunched awkwardly over his laptop, long fingers flashing over the keys with an unceasing tap-tap-tapping that was really starting to get on Dean's nerves. He narrowed his eyes and tried another deep sigh. He frowned when this attempt was received with exactly the same lack of reaction as his previous effort. Clearly subtlety was getting him nowhere, so he went for a direct approach._

" _Dude, you going to be geeking out on that thing all night?"_

 _Sam finally looked up, staring at Dean as if his grumbling sibling had suddenly grown two heads._

" _Dean. Uh. I thought you'd gone out to that bar over the road hours ago."_

 _The elder Winchester's eyebrows shot up, incredulous at that damning admission of disregard for his existence._

" _Well, that's just peachy. I've been waiting patiently for you to finish whatever the hell it is you are doing for the last hour or so, and all the while you had totally forgotten I was in the room!"_

 _Sam didn't even have the grace to look apologetic as he huffed out an absent-minded "Sorry"._

 _Dean fairly flounced off the bed in disgust. Shoving his Colt 1911 down the back of the waistband of his jeans, he adjusted his plaid shirt over it, grabbed his leather jacket and made for the door._

" _Why don't you give me a call when you find something; I'll be doing some research of my own with a bottle of beer and the local talent."_

 _He closed the motel door behind him with a resounding bang_ – and woke up. The room was curtained close and dark; Lisa's arm was draped across his chest. A heavy, constraining weight, even though she was so slight. He tried to take a deep breath, failed.

Every night was the same. He and Lisa would have sex –always passionate and heartfelt, he would allow it to overwhelm him with physical sensation, enabling him to fall asleep afterwards having lost himself in that little death – only to dream about Sam. Always Sam.

Tonight's dream had been a good one really, built from a happy memory, but it still left him feeling as though there was a silver dagger lodged in his chest. Gently he moved still-sleeping Lisa's arm and swung his bare legs over the edge of the bed. He sat very still for a moment, resting his head in both hands. He didn't need to look at the clock; he knew it would be somewhere around 4am. It was always around this time that he would wake, regardless of whether the dreams were good or bad. He was lucky if he got three or four hours sleep these days; in fact, he couldn't remember the last time he'd had more rest than that in the last few years, outside of being unconscious from injuries, or very occasionally, passed out after a night of serious drinking. Not even, he supposed wryly – when he'd been dead. Especially not when he had been dead.

He silently pulled on underwear, an old singlet and his grey sweat pants, and quietly closed the bedroom door behind him. He exited the small house barefoot and sat on the porch under the pale silver eye of the moon ( _waning, gibbous_ – Sam's voice helpfully informed him inside his head) to pull on his boots. In spite of his attempts to embrace a normal life, he still hadn't got round to buying anything as _civilian_ as a pair of trainers. It was making him feel vulnerable enough to be setting out each day for his run round the town without his gun tucked into the back of his pants. To forego his sturdy boots (complete with the small knife in its hidden inner sheath) would be a step too far for the ex-hunter, even though since he had arrived in Cicero, he had seen no sign of anything more deadly or threatening than the oversized twelve-year old bully at Ben's school. Or perhaps that brainless pit-bull the neighbour down the block doted on, that barked like it thought it was a Black Dog every time he and Ben walked by on their way to the park to play baseball or soccer.

Somehow Lisa put up with him, complete with all of his considerable baggage. Like the old habits he couldn't let go of – always sleeping with the big bowie knife under the pillow, in spite of the way her eyes had widened in fear when she first saw it; the drive to keep his body fit and ready to fight that found him every morning, whatever the weather, pounding the pavements and lakeside paths of Cicero for hours until every muscle ached and he was drowned in sweat; like the constant state of alertness he held himself in, despite the persistent dull quiet that seemed to be all that Jackson Township had to offer since the changelings had been destroyed all those years ago. By him and Sam.

Lisa even put up with how everything always came back to one thing. To Sam.

He had told her what happened in Stull Cemetery. Everything, though it was almost as hard for her to hear as it was for him to tell. He owed her that much, for taking him in – broken sad thing that he was, after. Castiel's touch had repaired his shattered face, saved the life that had been seeping away into the ground, trying to trickle through the dirt to follow his brother into the Pit, slipping away from him alongside the tears of blood that had slid slowly down his bruised cheeks. But not even an angel's touch could repair his broken soul.

That morning was no different from the hundred others since Sam was lost. Dean ran through the slowly lightening Indiana morning, through the pre-dawn still-moonlit streets, the faded grey spirit of a soldier escaped from some army boot camp. Which was, he supposed, not so very far from the truth. Dean Winchester had survived an invisible war that very few people were even aware had been fought at all. A veteran who had nobody to share experiences with, as virtually all his comrades in arms (so very few to begin with) were dead or gone. Only Bobby remained, but Bobby was in South Dakota, and Dean had promised Sam he would live a normal apple pie life with Lisa and Ben. The old hunter was not part of a normal life. It was probably a couple of months since Dean had spoken to his old friend, and though he wouldn't have admitted it, he was avoiding any contact. Talking to Bobby hurt. It was bad enough that he saw Sam everywhere, without adding reminders of all the other raw losses - memories of Ellen and Jo, Ash and Pamela, all the friends and allies fallen over the years of fighting.

Dad.

Dean smiled, but it was grim - bleak. He didn't need any new raising of Witnesses to help him remember all the dead he hadn't saved. He ran, his heavy boots thudding dully against the concrete paving slabs of Cicero's suburbia. His ghosts kept pace with him easily in the dark. He hadn't found any way to outrun them yet, but he kept trying. He knew he was sick. He knew how empty he was inside, how right Famine had been, and how much more empty he was now than he had been back then, when the third Horseman had looked deep into his soul. He was scoured out, a real Hollow Man ( _T S Elliot, Dean? Really?_ Hey, I read, Sammy…). Death would be a mercy, and at the back of his mind was the tiny frail hope that maybe he had garnered enough plus points in averting the Apocalypse for God to give him a place in that fucked up place called Heaven, instead of chucking him screaming back into Hell. Maybe.

But he had promised to live. And Dean Winchester might lie and cheat and steal and kill, but he always kept his promises.

It was the smell that alerted his hunter instincts. Over the scents of damp earth and still lake water ran a thread of dissonance, metallic, familiar and unmistakeable. Blood. He had been out there for nearly two hours and the sun was already starting to warm the air as it rose, glistening through the new leaves of the oaks as he crossed E226th Street where it ran along the edge of the Bear Slide Golf course - where he and his neighbour, Sid, played on Sunday mornings ( _yeah, me playing golf, Sammy, who'd've thought it?_ ). He was making his way through the wooded margins of the Morse reservoir, threaded by several muddy creeks, when that scent of blood caused every sense to switch onto full alert. Skin pricking, he slowed to a more cautious pace, wishing he had brought his colt 1911 after all.

Then he heard the voices.

* * *

to be continued...

Reviews and comments are all welcome!


	2. After Sam

****

* * *

**Chapter 2**

There were two of them: the eldest couldn't have been more than Ben's age, the younger was probably six or seven years old, wailing uncontrollably while his brother (Dean knew they were siblings instantly, recognising that shared bond) tried in vain to console him. The two kids were hunkered down in the mud next to an inlet, both liberally spattered in dark muck that from a distance could have been mud, but which Dean feared was something worse. He approached the brothers cautiously, not wanting to spook them more than they already were, but they were so absorbed in their tragedy neither noticed the tall man until he was almost on top of them. The younger kid screamed a little and Dean winced inside at the way the elder instinctively enfolded the child in his arms protectively. He remembered that feeling. He remembered Sam.

He held out both hands in a universal gesture of openness – here, see – I'm harmless.

"Hey, kids," he kept his voice low and calm, "What's up?"

The older boy frowned the younger into silence and took charge, though his voice betrayed him with a tremor or two as he spoke.

"It's our dog, mister. He got out of the yard in the night and Kevin followed him down here, but now we can't find him and Kevin thinks the lake monster has eaten him but that's just silly, Kev, coz there is no monster, see?"

Kevin, all wide eyes and floppy golden hair ( _it hurt, it hurt, Sammy…._ ) looked up at this and shook his head so hard tears flew from the corner of his eyes, catching the low sunlight like jewels.

"Then how come there's all this blood then, Marty? An' I _seen_ it, it was big and had teeth like..like..this big.." Kevin gesticulated, throwing his small arms as wide as he could, to demonstrate the monster's maw. "An' it chomped on Carb like he was nothin' an' I was so scared, Marty, it ate him all up!" At this the tears started flowing again, and Marty drew the small boy closer, while Dean knelt down next to the boys, oblivious of the bloody mud soaking into his sweats. He put a reassuring hand on the older boys shoulder, felt the kid bracing himself, being strong for his kid brother.

"Marty, Kevin – I need to get you both out of here and take you home. Come on, let's go."

Marty was nodding but Kevin was clearly resisting as Dean tried to get both boys to their feet.

"I can't leave Carbie," the young boy sobbed. Dean looked out at the smooth surface of the creek, then back at the boys. He made a decision. The most important thing was to get these two out of here, then he could return and investigate the dog's disappearance after work. He had to hope this creature only hunted in the darkness, like most fuglies. He swept the younger boy up into his arms, and was immediately rewarded with a clinging embrace and a cold snot covered face tucked into his neck. He almost smiled. Marty was looking up at him with gratitude when the creek suddenly erupted, a dark mass breaking the surface with a huge spout of green brackish water, and something sinuous and scaly grabbed the older boy round his waist.

Marty screamed as whatever it was tightened its grip and began to drag him backwards into the water. Dean was overwhelmed by noise as little Kevin echoed his brother's screams from less than an inch from the young man's ear, and simultaneously tried to kick himself free of Dean's arms. Cursing inwardly that he had no weapons but his boot-knife, Dean managed to set Kevin down a few yards away from the water's edge and with a stern admonishment to the boy stay where he was, Dean turned back to the older boy. There was no time to pull out his knife, or do anything other than fling himself forward into the fray. The struggling Marty was already waist deep in the churning mud and behind him, Dean could see emerging from the dark waters a horror the like of which he had never seen before. He could now confirm first hand that unfortunately Kevin had not been exaggerating about the lethal nature of this monster's teeth.

Yellowed curving incisors longer than Sam's arms glistened in the dawn light, and Dean could have wished for darkness to spare him that sight, if he'd had the time. Or for something to shield him from the blast of fetid air as the creature exhaled, a noxious wind that blew over its victim and hunter both.

Dean did have time to notice with a pang of pure fear that the older boy had gone ominously quiet, even as he leapt into the broiling muddy waters and made a grab for the kid's limp arm. Latching onto the boy with one hand, Dean tore at the strange tentacle-like appendage with the other, desperately trying to free the kid before the creature brought that lethal array of teeth into play. Another blast of foul air swept over them both, and Dean found himself battling to breathe, and understood why Marty had lost consciousness so quickly. _As if a monster with teeth like that needed any other weapons in its arsenal_ , he thought angrily as he fought off a wave of dizziness, never loosening his own grip on both boy and tentacle.

Shit, he'd _chew_ his way through the damn thing if he had to. No way this fugly was killing a kid, not on his watch.

That was when everything became a little hazy. Breathing as shallowly as he could to avoid the suffocating gases, Dean managed to loosen the creature's grip on the boy, holding Marty desperately in one arm to keep the kid from slipping into the water and drowning, somehow he half threw, half pushed him away, out of immediate danger. Miraculously, he felt Marty moving towards the mudslide that was the shoreline, and realised the reason Kevin had stopped screaming was the little boy had come to help. Kevin was red faced with the effort but was successfully dragging his big brother out of harm's way. Dean had the briefest of moments to feel an irrational pride in the kid's achievement, before something tore into him with what felt like the impact of a freight train. A freight train armed with dozens of sharp bladed swords, that is.

And _that_ was when Dean Winchester realised that being unable to breathe was likely to be the least of his problems.

* * *

  



	3. After Sam

**Chapter 3**

Sam Winchester was nothing but a hunter now. That way of life was ingrained in him today more than ever before. He wasn't sure that this was a good thing, but he hadn't known what else to do when he had found himself cold and alone in the chilly rain that fell softly on the deserted cemetery at Stull. He had hitched a ride with the first car that had passed, ended up in Cicero under a shorting street lamp, staring through the night into the warm light of Dean's newfound domesticity. Staring at Dean with Lisa and Ben. A family.

He didn't know how long he had stood there that first time, even after Dean had drawn the curtains on the strangely moving vignette of normality, just staring at the neat house with its smooth manicured lawn, his mind blank and eyes burning.

How long had it been since he and Adam/Michael had tumbled headlong into that vortex that led to Lucifer's cage? He wasn't sure. He knew there were certain things he didn't want to remember, so he made sure that he didn't think about them that much.

Sam didn't even know why he was there. He knew he should stay away from his brother, as far away as possible; he should leave Dean to live this life Sam had forced him to promise to embrace. But somehow, every few weeks, he found himself in Cicero again; watching, lurking in the shadows cast by the rosy glow of Dean's new civilian life. He had seen how the first few weeks had been tough on all three of them, Lisa, Ben and Dean, but felt vindicated when he'd begun to notice a gradual creep of colour returning to his brother's pale cheeks; when Dean had come back from an interview Lisa's best friend's husband had organised having gained a job with a construction firm, and had been even more satisfied when he'd returned a few days later to watch Dean working – seen how the physical labour was making Dean stronger again, how his brother had fallen into an easy interaction with the other guys, how he'd seemed happy drinking with his next door neighbour, or playing pool with his work colleagues after nightfall at the local bar. Had watched through opened blinds as the three of them had sat down to dinner, night after night, home cooked meals at a table (just like the one heaven had given Sam, though it seemed so long ago now, it was almost forgotten).

This was what the promise had been all about, and Sam knew he had been right to ask this of his brother. Family and normality was all Dean had ever wanted, all he dreamed about when not having nightmares about Hell. Sam knew it, had seen it when doomed Jeremy had walked through their dreams, yet still he had to keep coming back to see the evidence. Proof.

He had been back to Cicero often enough to know Dean's routines off by heart. He knew how to keep out of sight but still get close to his brother. Close enough to see into Dean's eyes and confirm the old tension was easing. He was fit, probably fitter now than he had ever been, so could keep pace with Dean when he ran, but he also knew the routes Dean took, and where he could cut corners to wait in the shadows, undetected. He did not underestimate the elder Winchester's instinct for knowing when he was being watched, even though hunting was no longer part of Dean's day-to-day life.

So it was no coincidence that Sam had chosen the farthest part of Dean's route to hide himself, though it seemed it was pure luck that had brought him there to that spot on the very day something ancient and evil decided to emerge from the reservoir.

Except luck was something no Winchester believed in.

He had not been in his chosen spot for long when he heard the screaming and recognised it as being children. His first thought was that is was just kids playing, until he remembered the time and registered the unlikelihood of children being out in the woods at this ungodly hour in the morning. He didn't hesitate, even though the last thing he wanted was for Dean to see him. Maybe one day he would be ready to tell the older Winchester that his little brother was alive and walking topside, but that day was not today. Or at least, he would not have planned it that way. None of which stopped Sam Winchester stretching out his long legs and running towards the alarmed noises as fast as he could.

His heart sank as he crashed through the trees and heard the unmistakeable deep timbre of his brother's voice, yelling for someone called Kevin to stay put. As he emerged from the undergrowth, he was greeted by the sight of Dean plunging headlong into the churned up shallows and tacking, apparently unarmed, a monster the like of which Sam had never seen. He was immediately put in mind of the Guardian of the Pool outside the Mines of Moria from the Lord of the Rings, and even had a moment to wonder if Dean the movie buff had thought the same, before he saw a small boy dragging a bigger kid through the water away from the beast, using buoyancy to help boost his lack of muscle, while Dean, barehanded, grappled with what looked like a long dark green tentacle that was wrapping itself around the older hunter's torso.

Sam rushed forward and grabbed the older kid, pulling him bodily out of the mud and onto drier land. The smaller boy was open mouthed, shouting something, but Sam didn't (couldn't) register anything outside of his brother's plight Even as he deposited the unconscious kid unceremoniously on the ground, he saw the monster's massive head emerge from the brown frothing waters where the creek met the lake. He almost recoiled in horror as the beast opened its cavernous mouth to display a formidable array of fangs that would have put a Great White to shame. The tentacle that gripped his brother inexorably drew the struggling man towards those gleaming teeth, and Sam couldn't help but let out a huge yell of protest as the creature chomped down on Dean as if he was a pretzel. Sam's shout was drowned out by his brother's cry of anguish as the sabre-like fangs tore into Dean's upper thigh. Sam winced as he heard the sickening grate of teeth on Dean's femur.

Sam ran, still yelling, into the creek. Somehow, impossibly, Dean was still fighting, though Sam could see with a twist of his heart how red blood was flowing too freely to mingle with the brown and green waters below. Dean now seemed to have a blade of some description in his hand. Sam saw how the creature's flesh parted like butter as Dean wielded the knife, and noted that the path of the blade left trails of steam or smoke in its wake. The monster was roaring now, a deafening racket that made Sam's ears ache. _Silver,_ he thought, _the knife must be silver_.

And suddenly his confidence returned as he felt for his Glock, which he always kept loaded with silver bullets. This creature, whatever it was, was dead meat.

Even as Sam drew his weapon, the creature gained the upper hand over his steadily weakening brother. Dean's knife was wrenched out of his hand, left embedded in the creature's smoking flesh, and a second tentacle gripped the young man and, raising him high above the surface, flung him like a child's broken toy onto the shore, where he landed heavily with a nauseating thud and lay still.

"No!" Sam cried out again, and fury in every line of his body, raised the Glock and filled the beast's head with the entire clip of silver bullets.

* * *


	4. After Sam

**Chapter 4**

Dean was ablaze with pain and weary beyond anything he'd felt for a long, long time. He was vaguely aware of small warm hands tentatively touching his face and a very young voice ( _not Ben, not Sammy_ ) begging him to wake up, but there were lead weights on his eyelids, and his ears felt as though they were full of water, and his leg was afire and he thought perhaps now he had earned some rest. If he kept his eyes shut and blocked out the pain, would someone finally let him go? Surely now he was done. They had promised him rest when he was done, hadn't they?

He could feel his breath soft on his lips and wanted it to stop. He could hear his heart beating too loud and willed it to be still. He could feel the warm life's blood soaking out of him into the cold wet ground and was - _grateful_. At least it would be quick this time, quicker than being torn apart by Hell Hounds, though perhaps not as speedy as a shotgun blast. He hoped his heaven would have Sam in it, that he would be reunited with Mom, and Dad, and Ellen and Jo. Maybe Pamela would be there to offer him a slap on the butt and a dirty laugh, while Ash would provide the beers. He almost grinned at the thought but his face felt frozen. Lisa's face swam slowly into his mind and he flinched. Just a little. She was so beautiful, so kind and loving….but she deserved better than him, crippled as he was inside. She deserved to be free.

Dammit, _he_ deserved to be free.

He thought he heard multiple shots, then a deep voice shouting something he couldn't comprehend. It sounded like Sam, but then every deep voice sounded like Sam these days. He had almost become immune to that moment when his heart lurched in his chest with treacherous hope only to be dashed the next second as his brain kicked in to tell him he was imagining things again. He ignored it again now, trying to escape the pointless pain.

Then large rough hands were pawing at him, insistent and urgent and hot on his chilled skin. He tried to frown but it was too much effort. He was growing fuzzy round the edges, could feel himself adrift and it was pleasant, a feeling he wanted to embrace. But this newcomer ( _not Kevin, not Marty, who…?_ ) wouldn't let him slip away. A moan slipped past his parched lips as those large hands found the gaping wounds in his thigh and pressed down hard, stopping the bleeding - trying to save him, _what for? It was pointless, leave it, leave me, I'm not worth it….never was fucking_ worth _it_.

Those small warm hands were patting his cheek again, and he could hear Kevin's high voice, then that deeper, impossibly familiar voice replying, instructing the kid on dialling 911 in calm even tones that Dean could admire – _keeping cool in a crisis, that's my boy_. In that moment he found himself relaxing into the dream, accepting the impossible and taking whatever time he could get with his little brother, even if it wasn't real. He didn't care any more.

"Sammy," he breathed, hoarsely.

The deep voice fell silent, and Dean had a second of fluttering panic, a fear so strong he almost opened his eyes, afraid that naming Sam had somehow banished his spirit. Then those rough calloused fingers were stroking his face, tender and full of meaning, and Sam was leaning close, whispering in his ear.

"Dean."

And

"You promised me you'd live."

Dean thought he felt Sam's tears falling on him, like they had when he'd died all those times before, and the pain in his chest tightened as the bonds of his promise snapped shut around his heart again. His body was a cage and there was to be no escape this time.

Dean felt his own tears squeezing from under heavy lids, burning hot trails down his cold cheeks, but he knew he would fight, and live, and go back to Lisa and Ben.

Because Dean Winchester always kept his promises. Especially promises to Sam.

* * *

 **Epilogue part 1**

Sam slipped easily into the shadows when the emergency services arrived, watching attentively as they tended to the unconscious form of his brother. He could see their total disbelief at the fantastical story about monsters and lost dogs and heroes told first by Kevin and then by Marty as the older boy regained his senses. There was no evidence, of course; Sam had made sure of that, dragging the gross bloated corpse of the creature into the deeper waters before watching it sink like the proverbial stone into the dark depths of the Morse Reservoir. He hoped its decay would not cause any pollution of the water, but had no time to find another safer way of disposing of the body.

When he returned to base, he would have to see what he could dig up on this creature. He thought his new hunting companions would be interested in yet another example of evil appearing out of place and out of time.

He wondered what Dean would remember of this encounter when he woke. Part of him was secretly relieved that his brother had been so far gone he had never managed to open his eyes to confirm Sam's presence. Now Dean could return to the family that Sam had given him, without any ties to the past to hold him back from happiness.

Sam knew he was right. It was better for everyone this way. He would return in a few days to check Dean was recovering from his injuries, and no one would be any the wiser.

* * *

 **Epilogue part 2**

Castiel turned away from the younger Winchester as Sam moved stealthily back through the trees to climb into his black Dodge Charger.

The angel did not move but watched silently as Dean was loaded into the ambulance along with the two young boys, noting how the brothers were holding onto each other tightly, and how Marty with his other hand was clutching the unconscious hunter's lax muddy hand and refusing to let go, in spite of the paramedic's best efforts.

Strange how someone with so little self esteem had that instant effect on others. Somehow, Dean Winchester's worth always shone bright as the sun through all his doubt.

Satisfied that his one-time charge would survive to fight another day, the new sheriff of heaven sighed. In an unseen flutter of dark wings, Castiel folded space and time in on himself and was gone, back to his new onerous clean up duties.

* * *

The End 


End file.
